Toyota negative on batteries because it has more experience than other others on them

Toyota has more experience with their bad battery design is more like it.

 

This statement is what is interesting to me.

"-for now--there are unassailable limits on how much electricity can be stored in a given volume, and how quickly a battery can charge. "

Not to debate the validity of that claim as it stands today, but to point out that it strikes me as somewhat schizophrenic.

To say the limits are unassailable...but attach the caveat " for now " ? The term " For Now " suggests to me non-permanence, and the idea that the limits are indeed something that could change, improve and expand.

Unassailable suggests to me, that change is impossible. or near to impossible.

But Toyota has followed the path they have followed. Great investment into what they deem a bridge technology in Hybrids, which of course does include use of Batteries. And now investment into a fuel cell vehicle.

My novice observation is both formats pose challenges. The lack of infrastructure to support charging, the lack of infrastructure to support fuel cells,

This is something, I will enjoy watching develop and unfold. How much success can Toyota create for a nearly $60,000 fuel cell vehicle?
What advances can be made in battery and charging technology?

Not so much what we will be driving 5 years from now, or even 10, but maybe what we will be driving 20-30 years from now.
But "For Now", it's early in the race.

 

just more of the same. no doubt he was asked some stupid questions, and just repeated the company mantra.
i'm happy to wait for the next pip, or if my needs change, there are plenty of ev's coming.

 

sounds like a press release fueled by bull shit, you know like a previous toyota internet video

Doh. perhaps Mr. Scott didn't get the memo. Tesla will have a 290 mile range ( model S 90d) that can swap batteries in 2 minutes much faster than a fuel cell car. Physics doesn't seem to be a problem. Sure there is only one swap station, but does hydrogen have that many more fueling stations. Mr. Scott probably needs to look at the volt and i3-rex, and explain how the physics has prevented any of these cars to be built.

Nope, the guy either doesn't know what he's talking about or he's lying about the limitations. Either way that message like many from the mirai relies on bull shit.

 

i thought the battery swap was dead?

 

Roll out of battery swap is in California is in a coma. It turns out that people would rather wait to charge then spend money to get it done fast. Given that battery swap prices would have been around the cost of a fill up with hydrogen should not be lost on those swearing fcv will take off because of fast fueling. That's one reason hydrogen is paid for by the state, federal government, or car companies in this pre-commercial test.

Toyota and the rest of the CFCP(california fuel cell partnership or fuel cell lobby) successfully lobbied CARB (a member of CFCP) to disallow battery swap from credits, getting rid of the financial intensive to set up more than one test case until more cars are on the road..

We do see that charge time is not a limitation though, and swap is happening in other tests.
Battery swapping becoming common practice for commercial vehicles | Electronics News
Battery Swapping A Reality In China

One area touted by the fuel cell lobby was busses or delivery vehicles. Here swap makes a lot more financial sense ;-) Did I mention in the chinese market and 49 out of the 50 states plug-ins are favored over fuel cell vehicles, because spending $30,000 or more to fund fueling and vehicles seems asinine at this early stage. The US taxpayer has already spent over $3B on fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure, and we don't even have 1000 vehicles on the road.

 

I'd like to hear someone respond to the 300mile range being as good as a gasoline car statement with a request for examples of gas cars with such a range.

A comment to the article seems to apply in that Toyota might be suffering from "not invented here" syndrome.

Plugins have infrastructure, they just lack it in the area of fast charging to support long trips. BEVs don't need that infrastructure to have a positive effect on our daily transportation. There is enough two car families, with home charging possibilities, that a short range BEV will work out. And for plug in hybrids, lack of fast charging simply isn't an issue.

 

I've wondered why these FCV's don't come with a plug and a bigger battery. Plug in at home, make most or all of you daily drive on domestic or self-produced electricity, and save the expensive hydrogen for long trips. Makes sense/cents right?

Well it now occurs to me that would drastically cut down hydrogen use for many (most?) owners. For example, as a PHEV owner I've found I now only buy 2 to 3 tanks of gasoline per year. So combine the limited number of early FCV adopters with using so little of hydrogen and that would seriously hamper the new H2 market and adding future stations would be financially difficult. Best to keep 'em using H2 only I suppose.

 

The plugs will come from the ford/mercedes/nissan partnership and the bmw side of the toyota partnership and the gm side of the honda partnership, although I'm not sure this will make the 2017 nissan fcv.

A plug-in fcv goes against the lobbyist talking points though so don't expect these from honda or toyota. You can't lobby that fuel cells need much higher than plug-ins because batteries aren't ready, then put big batteries in your car. Although the idiocy of the physics argument toyota is pressing here, should be apparent to most people with an open mind, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work on the California and Japanese government. One problem for the fuel cell lobby is that prime minister abe did visit musk and drove around in a model S. That should at least convince one member of the japanese government that the physics argument is non-sense.

They need to figure out how to drop the cost of the fuel cell stack. a PHEV using fuel cells could have a smaller cheaper fuel cell stack and would mitigate the high cost of hydrogen. It wouldn't really justify the 3 million yen plus+ subsidies over producing a 50 mile phev though.

 

A less cynical reason for not introducing them first is because packaging all the components in the car. The fuel cell stack may be smaller than an ICE, but the tanks are still bulky, and the battery is now bigger. Picture a Volt converted to CNG. It will have multiple small tanks stuffed where they can fit. This will cost more money, and likely add more weight. Or there is one or two larger tanks that take up cargo space.

How about making the Mirai a plug in? It has already lost the fifth seat. To not lose more space in the cabin or trunk, it will have EV range on par with the Prius plugin, or lose about half its hydrogen range.

A successful plug in FCEV will likely have to use something besides compressed hydrogen. Batteries are improving, and so are fuel cells, but can only compress a gas so much while retaining a fast refueling time. It's just the limit of physics.

 

according to toyota we should throw away phone and laptop batteries and power them by fuel cells. now, how about them electric drones. do they defy laws of physics?

 

i think toyota is focused on the long trip viability. or hycam gets us to florida with 2 ten minute gas ups. that's not going to happen with ev's for a long, long time. still a lot of ev's to be sold for the other 99% of driving between now and then though.

then again, how long will it be before an fcv can get to florida like that? they aren't answering that question.

 

Google Maps

Let's see boston to florida 22h 13 min in a car. Add 3h 30 minutes in a tesla for longer breaks. Or 3h 20 min on a plane, add 2 hours for airport security, etc and renting a car. It seems to take about 4.2x as long as a plane in a normal car and 4.9x in a tesla. I'm not sure how many people that is important to, but the volt seems to add very little time, but perhaps is not really a road trip mobil, the mirai and clarity look even worse for the road trip minded.

For that fuel cell vehicle owner in boston, good luck. My guess is your car will be crushed before you can drive and fill up at public hydrogen stations.

I'm more interested in the physics that says this trip is impossible in a tesla. Perhaps toyota needs to compare some things.

 

i don't think anyone has said it's impossible.

 

The Toyota comments have to read in context: they are trying to plan for a carbon free future 20-50 years from now.
That does not make them 'down' on *EV today or anytime in the practical future that any of us care about, any more than their comments should worry a Corolla owner.

And by the way, their long long vision still has *EVs as the hub of urban transport. Just not as 400 mile general purpose vehicles.

In short, people: breathe. Toyota is not abandoning us or the *EV mainstream.

 

For energy density, the amount of energy per pound, here is my ranking:

• 1st Place: all energy sources external and spent reactants dumped
  • Surf board
  • Sail boat
  • Solar powered anything
• 2nd Place: half of energy source external and spent reactants dumped
  • Air breathing engines with exhaust
  • Air-hydrogen_source fuel cells with water exhaust
  • Air-hydrocarbon batteries
• 3d Place: half of energy source external and spent reactants retained
  • Air-metal batteries
• 3d Place: all energy sources internal and spent reactants retained
  • Ordinary batteries
• 4th Place: all energy sources internal and spent reactants dumped
  • Rockets
  • 1902 space project:
• 5th Place: all source, exhaust, and engine are dumped
  • nuclear (high density, does not scale to car size)

So if we use Toyota's numbers, '3000 by 2017,' they propose to sell or lease ~1,500 fuel cell vehicles per year. Their current approach of highly compressed hydrogen does not scale well.

I'm OK with a hydrogen fuel cell that uses another carrier for the hydrogen:

• ammonia
• liquified fossil fuel gasses
• liquified fossil fuel
• solid fossil fuel (yes one can make hydrogen from coal)

Bob Wilson

 

I agree with you that shorter range electric vehicles work with home charging and possibly multi-car situation. Already seen it exist in the real world.

Maybe I should of said "Public Infrastructure" because while it exists and is growing I still don't think it's enough in most area's. That lack of fast charging to support long trips is what I'm talking about.

 

Yep. Toyota/Lexus will say or run ads saying disparaging things about EVs in the short run but they aren't abandoning an EV future. They will have competitive EVs to sell us in due time.

It's just like GM with hybrid passenger cars back in 2001....